BEIRUT: The Daily Star was ranked the Lebanese newspaper with the best social media presence by Forbes Middle East Wednesday, which also dubbed it the third most popular online Lebanese paper.
In a ranking of 41 English and Arabic language newspapers in the Arab World, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram placed first. The Daily Star ranked 23rd, behind Lebanese papers As-Safir in 10th and An-Nahar in 14th.
The paper’s online traffic increased by 53.5 percent, more than both of the Lebanese newspapers ranked above it.
Forbes Middle East said its rankings were based on Google Analytics data from August 2011 to August 2012, including visits, new visits, social networking presence and average user time spent on a newspaper’s website.
According to Forbes Middle East, The Daily Star logged 7.8 million visits in the period measured, including 4.28 million unique visits.
The average visitor spent five minutes and eight seconds on The Daily Star’s website, in comparison to 11 minutes spent at Al-Ahram, nine minutes and 21 seconds at As-Safir, and six minutes and 15 seconds at An-Nahar.
With a 22.38 percent presence on social networking sites, The Daily Star ranked first among all Lebanese newspapers. An-Nahar placed 12th in this category, Al-Diyar 23rd, and As-Safir 26. Al-Bayan, a UAE-based paper, placed first.
The social networking rankings were based on the number of fans a paper has on social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus, as well as the number of followers it has on Twitter. It also took into account views on a paper’s YouTube channel.